Authors: Gordon Mackay
They continued for an appropriate time, covering approximately the same distance from where they had exited the ship to the recovery room. So no-one was surprised when Belinda stopped by another set of rungs that led upwards. The
closed upper hatchway could be seen looking down at them, a climb that shouldn’t take very long to achieve. Without another word, she indicated with a pointing finger and began to ascend. Everyone fell into line in exactly the same order as when they descended.
It’s like a clandestine military operation
, thought Scott.
Belinda
cracked opened the hatch, listening and looking for any signs of activity. There was none. She spotted the open doors that led into the docking area with the nose of the black ship just visible. Without waiting, she crept out of the shaft, having raised a hand to make the others wait for her say so before they too emerged. She stepped across to the hangar entrance while still looking around and listening. There was no-one else around and nothing to give her concern. She returned to the others and whispered it was safe, insisting they should head for the ship as soon as they were clear. One by one, they each climbed from the shaft and made their way towards the dock. Frell and Drang felt extreme trepidation as they approached the same type of ship that had caught them leaving Earth’s solar system. They both hoped it wasn’t another trap as freedom seemed so close.
Scott had fallen behind the others, waiting by the hangar doors as the rest tip-toed across the smooth floor. He was about to turn and follow when the sound of dozens of tiny feet could be heard in the distance
, getting closer by the shortening seconds. He whistled loudly and shouted, “Run like hell and get this thing ready for take-off!”
They looked and heard the reason for his extremely loud and worrying outburst. Not one
person hesitated. Phyllis sprinted like an athlete, bounding past the others like a kangaroo on heat and a promise. She cleared the ramp in good enough time to embarrass any Olympic hop-skip-and jump hopeful. The others weren’t far behind, all running as if the Devil himself was snapping at their heels.
Strapping in to the pilot’s seat, Phyllis took the helm and began to energise the systems needed
to leave. Information regarding the ship’s position flashed across several screens with certain conditions highlighted before the ship could exit. Drang had already taken up a similar position and was making himself familiar with the ship’s controls and layout. Both Phyllis and Drang worked hard at getting this ship ready for departure, checking more systems while powering others. A warning beacon drew their attention from the controls they fought to energise and understand, with Belinda observing from behind them. Frell was standing by the door waiting for her lover and father of her daughter. Her concern for him had made her wait, just in case another pair of hands would help him, and also to recover his body should things turn awkward. Knowing the others were safely on board with Frell positioned at the top of the ramp, Scott decided it was time to make
his
break for freedom. Starting his run towards the ship, he heard the pitter-patter of feet directly behind him. “Holy-shit!” he shouted as he tried to put some distance between them.
The ship lurched as the beacon warning changed colour. Its repetitive flashing altered as well, taking on a much faster rate. There was a feeling of hopelessness as they each realised the cradle that supported the ship, upon which it rested, was
urgently lowering itself towards the floor. The ramp began to bend as the ship’s height decreased, with Frell holding on to the door’s edge and shouting for Scott to run faster. He couldn’t reply as he was going flat-out and his breathing wouldn’t allow him to cough never mind discuss his tactics of escape.
Belinda reached across to touch Phyllis on a shoulder, pointing to the control for the ramp and undercarriage. Drang caught sight of her and understood what she was trying to say. Phyllis nodded as she
shouted, “Lowering the undercarriage… Now!”
Another jolt ran through the ship’s structure, throwing Frell from one side of the door across to the other. She exhaled a loud shout of surprise as she grabbed hold while
continuing to watch Scott’s valiant attempt to make the half-minute mile a reality. “C’mon General, you can do it!” she shouted at the top of her voice.
The Greys were right on his heals as he approached the ramp’s bottom edge and as the ship’s undercarriage doors began to open. But what happened next surprised everyone, including and especially the little grey guys who were about to lay claim to Scott. The undercarriage doors released a torrent of sea water as they
burst open. Three tsunami waves rushed across the hanger floor, one from each of the undercarriage bays. The surges picked up the little grey bodies before smashing them into the walls and fittings. Some were knocked unconscious while others frantically struggled to stay afloat, with them all eventually surging through the hangar’s doorway, all carried by a torrential flow of water. The hanger’s safety sensors detected the sudden appearance of water with overriding mechanisms energising to seal the hangar, thereby saving the rest of the base from flooding. The system was installed to protect the base in case of leakage from the ocean outside, and most effective it was too. As the doors slammed shut with a vengeance, a small grey figure was seen to be sliced through his middle. Another lost an arm and a leg. A few others who had still been trying to make some headway through the rushing torrent to reach the ship were caught in mini whirlpools, where drowning seemed to be their only release from a life of servitude.
The ship was felt to leap upwards as the trapped water was released, allowing it to settle more gently on the floor as the cradle finally
pancaked. Scott had only just made it onto the ramp as the first ferocious waterfall began, twisting around to witness his pursuers being swept away. He recalled the loose gas bottle and Phyllis’s remark about a purging fault, putting two and two together. “Effen brilliant!” he said.
“We are both inside and safe so the ramp can be retracted and the outer door closed,” reported a relieved Frell
to the ship’s control. She grabbed hold of Scott before pulling him towards her and kissing him passionately. He still hadn’t got his breath back as his lover gave him the enormous smacker. To anyone else it might have sounded as if he was hot for sex with his heavy breathing through his nose and heaving chest. But in reality, although he was enjoying the pleasure of the kiss, he was suffocating and desperate to breath.
Phyllis witnessed the illuminated beacon extinguishing while Drang reported the accepted pre-takeoff condition of closed hangar doors. The preset signal for departure doors to open was
initiated and the hanger began to flood completely. Any greys who had survived the initial swamping were about to meet their doom as the hangar filled with water with a pressure that would be beyond their capacity of endurance. A few little bodies were crushed, their contorted little shapes swirled around the hangar as the turbulence of the water created swirls. They would eventually be ejected as flotsam. The protective system for flooding locked-out any other that may have been used to override the doors. Part of the fault diagnosis and repair of any detected leakage was for the exit doors to open allowing any flood-water, flotsam and seabed sediments to be ejected. This would ensure the seals around each doorway would be free from any kind of obstruction, allowing for the eventual closure to be clear of debris and extremely secure. Should there be any kind of leakage after that, it would be up to the maintenance personnel to detect where the problem was and repair it.
The area filled in double-quick time and the ship’s undercarriage was retracted. A departing level of buoyancy was achieved, rotating as it prepared to exit the base. When its attitude was in line with the outer doors, the surrounding water was purged from the hangar at a very high rate. The ship didn’t need to use its own power as the flow of forced water carried it clear of the base and across the ocean floor. As soon as the ship was clear, the base doors slammed shut. It was as if they had offended a host to the point where they had been thrown out and told never to return. Scott smiled as he said, “I’ve been thrown out of better places than that, but certainly none as strange.” His companions smiled as they liked his joke. “And they’re definitely off my Christmas card list,” he added with a jovial shake of a
n angry fist.
Drang and Phyllis coordinated the work load, preparing to rise and leave the ocean’s depths and the planet’s atmosphere. Telepathy was back in action, as well as verbal methods of communicating with each other. Drang and Phyllis were presently using speech to confer with
each other, their pre-flight checks and preparations would have filled everyone’s head with meaningless information if they had used telepathy. Scott heard everything. He listened to the voices of the pilots and telepathic chatter by the others’. He felt he was flying an airline when the announcement to take a seat and strap-in was announced. He was tempted to ask when the duty-free trolley would be coming round before thinking of the in-flight meals that are provided. That was when his belly released the loudest rumble he had heard since Mars. The sound was like distant thunder and a blocked drain clearing at the same time. Hunger had raised its starving head once again, and much louder too. He was determined to get some food from the kitchen, preferably something other than crisps. He even began to wonder how one might actually cook a grey, if it were at all possible. What kind of stock would you get from the flesh, and would it make a tasty soup? He really didn’t want to think about it, but when your belly is making as loud a rumpus as his was anything that might be remotely edible begins to look like a veritable feast. The others picked-up his thoughts, hoping he was making another joke of the situation. But they too began to feel they needed to eat.
“Standby
everyone, we’re about to leave the ocean. There might be a surge of acceleration as we break free so ensure you are both seated and secure.” Phyllis had issued the instructions as she was programming coordinates for orbit, wishing the greys had inertia stabilisers fitted as their own ships did. It would make sense and travel would be a whole lot better and safer. Each member of the group informed Phyllis when they were ready.
“Here we go,” she said with relief, touching a circular panel with the heel of one hand and using only three fingers to press buttons. The ship’s momentum could be felt, and even though they were travelling through dense sea water the ship was getting faster at a quickening pace, much like a missile in its early stages
of launching.
The ship was on auto-pilot and its own systems monitored its progress and rate of acceleration with its energy pack sounding like an electrical transformer humming sweetly to itself. A warning alert was illuminated on the same panel, persuading Phyllis and Drang to turn themselves around to face an additional control unit. It warned of a complete failure in the undercarriage seals with water flooding in. She wondered why the warning had not been there when they entered the sea to reach the base, then recalled it wasn’t so much the seals at that time but the lack of purging gas. She guessed the seals must have seated badly following the undercarriage operation. She also worked out the failure would prevent them from leaving the planet’s atmosphere as water would still be in there. Drang was listening to her thoughts concerning their situation, arriving at a possible solution.
“We must lower the undercarriage after we leave the sea to empty any trapped liquid. All we need to do is retract it again and head for home.”
Phyllis had already subconsciously discounted that idea as a possibility. “We cannot do that, Drang,” she answered. “We may lose the trapped water but the vacuum in space would freeze what moisture remained and damage the ship’s structure. We could experience severe damage due to freezing and a vacuum within the leaking compartments.”
Drang felt a little embarrassed as he hadn’t thought of that.
His feelings registered with Phyllis, who winked at him. “It took me a while to see that problem myself,” she insisted, “and it’s not worth the risk to try.”
Drang nodded his head.
The ship’s automated systems tried to cut in by reducing speed with a change in direction.
“What’s happening?” everyone asked at once.
Phyllis released the ship from its auto-pilot guidance system, taking over the controls manually while Drang ran a systems’ diagnostic check. “The ship was instructing itself to return to the base for essential maintenance and repairs. I guess it wants the greys to fix the leaking seals for us.”
“That would be awfully nice of them,” said Scott, sarcastically.
“Yes, wouldn’t it,” added Belinda, dreading the thought.
“That is not the real problem,” said Phyllis, leaning across to scroll down the monitor’s pages. “Look,” she said, pointing to a specific line. “There is a fault with the gas supply that purges the undercarriage bays. It is also responsible for inflating the seals that appear to have failed. And without the gas in them, the seals must have twisted or warped. That is what allowed the water to enter.”
Drang released a sigh of frustration. “For a supposedly technologically superior species, they are using outdated and basic engineering practices to run their ships around the universe. The aircraft and automobiles on Earth use similar systems. I wish they would revert back to the ships we use and the type they used to.” Then he reconsidered his statement. “In retrospect, I am pleased they do not, because it gives us an advantage by using better ships.”